DESDEMONA
by icemanbobby
Summary: Bobby and Jubilee get stuck into a Danger Room scenario that might be more than they - and their relationship - can handle. (Adapted from RP.)
1. Ready Player X

It was meant to be a simple, easy, and maybe even 'fun' (by X-Men standards, anyway) exercise: Go to the Danger Room with your girlfriend; let off some steam with some co-op bad-guy punching; enjoy the adrenaline rush, then hit the showers.

But Bobby Drake was suddenly getting cold feet about the whole idea…'cause as soon as he had stepped into the Danger Room and logged in to the Simulation Selection screen, a 'Recommended Scenario' had popped up on the interface in bold red lettering.

 **#DESDEMONA** someone had titled it. (But Bobby didn't get the reference.)

 **Required Participants** :

• Robert Drake

• Jubilation Lee

It was paradoxically listed as both a 'cooperative' and '1-on-1' scenario, and had a list of physical and psychological risk warnings a mile long. And not just the standard ones either. Bobby sighed; it wouldn't let him select any other scenario.

"Uh, babe…" Bobby cleared his throat as Jubilee joined him in the room. "You might want to see this."

"Hm?"

Judging by the look on Bobby's face, Jubes guessed that his plan for a simple evening of Danger Room-ing may have hit a snag. "What's up?"

Bobby slipped his arm around Jubilee's waist when she joined him to fight with the console. Leaning into him, Jubes looked to the screen; reading it over with the same perplexed expression. "…'Desdemona'? Like that chick from Othello — or whatever?"

Trying to change the course selection proved futile, as Bobby had already come to find. "Like, what the heck?" Blinking now, the confused vampire glanced up at him. "Some dweeb is obviously tryin' to prank us. I mean, how can the scenario be both co-op _and_ 1-on-1?"

"…'Othello'?" Bobby's brow furrowed. "If someone's pranking us with Shakespeare… that means our 'dweeb' is definitely Hank, right?"

Typical of the impulsive girl, she shrugged and hovered a finger over the **[** **START]** tab. "Wanna just run the sim and see what the deal is?"

Bobby sighed, then gave her a plucky smile and placed his hand over hers. "Yeah, sure… Go team!" He lightly pressed her finger onto the **[START]**.

Immediately, the floor below them erupted upwards, separating the two with a wall that reached the ceiling and was quickly spreading the length of the room. He tried briefly to outrun it via ice-slide — but it was clearly designed to out-maneuver even his speedier girlfriend. The first task was a solo mission it seemed.

 _"So much for co-op!"_ Bobby shouted, irritated, at the room. For a moment, the sterile metallic walls did not respond, but then shimmered holographically: Bobby now stood at the base of the innumerable steps of an enormous temple. Jubes, on the other hand (or, on the other side of the wall), would soon find herself in a bitter, frozen landscape.

"Bobby—!?" Immediately after the pair were separated by the wall rising up from the Danger Room floor, Jubilee resorted to the tried-and-true method of slamming her fists into it.

"I already hate this simulation!" With her arm cocked in preparation to unleash a focused haymaker, the little vampire gritted her teeth before letting her clenched fist fly…

Which resulted in a 'swing and a miss', carrying her down into the snow as the metal box of a room shifted into the endless, wintry expanse; a cluster of icy snowdrifts loomed in the distance.

"Uh…" She blinked. "Okay then."

Pushing herself to her feet, Jubilee surveyed her surroundings — no sign of the Iceman anywhere.

"Bobby, do you copy?" The only response given by the comm in her ear was static. Much to Jubes' annoyance. "So much for co-op…"

After unknowingly quoting her boyfriend, she began her trek forward; waiting for something — anything — to happen.


	2. Who Writes This Stuff?

"I guess things can only go up from here…" Bobby muttered lamely to himself, as he turned down his useless static-y earpiece, and resigned himself to a slow-'n-steady trudging climb up the steps to the façade of the temple.

He could, of course, just ice-slide to the top, but Bobby got the feeling he might need to ration his gelid stamina for the tasks ahead; whatever they might be. 'Cause everything about the #Desdemona scenario sorta screamed **'BOSS FIGHT'** so far.

Especially now that he was noticing all the rivulets of blood that were trickling down the steps and terminating into coppery brown stains in their exposure to the dry heat of the simulated day.

* * *

On the other side - the wind was picking up in Jubes' polar 'adventure' - effectually driving her towards the snow dunes, while a voice that could have been her lover's (except that it definitely wasn't coming through the comm) started to swirl around her with the flurry of snowflakes.

 _"I thought you would come…"_ It said to her, despite there being no source for the voice in the cold desolation. _"…I always could make you."_

It gave her nothing to fight.

 _"Find me, babe…"_

Except maybe her own patience.

 _"Join me."_

The ice drifts glittered in what dim light was available.

"Is that…?" Jubilee halted as she muted her static-filled comm, the tips of her pointed ears twitching as she listened intently.

"Greeeaat…" She muttered, as Bobby's voice seemed to beckon to her from the very air itself. "I'm trapped in that one episode of Sailor Moon where the bad guys draw the girls to the North Pole and use illusions of their boyfriends to lure them to their deaths…"

As the quickening wind nudged the vampiric X-Man forward, she kept her shade-covered eyes on the frozen dunes up ahead.

Contrary to the Iceman's more tactical approach, the spunky teen had a more reckless course of action in mind. "I'm comin' for ya, Frosty…"

Without a second thought, Jubilee cut a path through the frozen terrain; snow whirling up behind her as she sped off toward the twinkling ice drifts in the distance.

* * *

The higher Bobby climbed, the more the heavy stench of death filled his nostrils and coated his lungs; once he was at the top, he could clearly see why: Careless piles of half-shrivelled and decomposing corpses were strewn about the landing, before the temple's darkened entrance.

And it wouldn't have mattered how many times Bobby might have reminded himself that it was just a simulation – his stomach still would have dropped, then lurched, all the same when he saw those tufts of matted blue fur, teeming with maggots.

That was Hank… Emphasis on _'was'_. # **Desdemona** wasn't playing around.

Bobby wondered how many more of his friends he'd find 'dead' here… And what about his girlfriend?

He sighed heavily, tensing up as he entered the unnaturally dark interior – that is, once he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the thing formerly known as Beast…

Inside, Bobby felt blind, his eyes taking too long to adjust; his pulse pounding in his ears, while a piercing peal of maniacally gleeful laughter suddenly echoed around him.

"…Jubes? You okay?"

It had to be her. But… something wasn't right.

Bobby iced himself up as a precaution, hoping there'd be plenty of other slick pools of blood (like the one he could feel under his feet) to provide enough moisture for any requisite ice-capades.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the arctic… All the progress that Jubilee had made through the snow and ice was suddenly rendered moot when, in a disorientating instant, she was transported smack dab into the middle of a sheltered ice cave.

The howling winds were gone; all was silent, save for a constant dripping of glacial meltwater from the icicle stalactites overhead. An odd, diffused lighting filtered up at regular intervals through the ice of the cave floor.

That voice (…Bobby's – or was it?) returned then, much closer, more immediate, but still formless:

 _"Navigating an endless expanse of snowy terrain during a storm is an impressive feat – even for someone with superhuman abilities. Even more impressive when the weather has a mind of its own – and I mean that_ ** _literally_ **_."_

A self-satisfied laugh echoed around the cave, while the dripping waters coagulated and hardened into the shape of a man – a taller, brawnier, spikier version of the Iceman that Jubes knew and loved.

 _"I could've had you wandering out there for days…"_ The Iceman told her, _"But I'm actually pretty fond of you. So I decided to bring you here. Now."_

He stepped closer to her, his ice continuing to bulk up and out from his torso. _"Sorry for all this soliloquizing, babe… It comes with the territory, apparently."_

"Oh. Wow." Remaining in the headspace of 'this is all just a simulation', the very real Jubilee folded her arms across her chest as she eyed her abominable snowman and the protrusions of ice that continued to jut from his towering form. "So… you've hit the gym, embraced your inner porcupine, and turned to evil monologues instead of adorably bad jokes?"

("Who the heck writes these programs…?" She mumbled under her breath.)

"So… What's the sitch here? You're, like, suddenly all big and bad and I'm supposed to fight against all the warm-n-fuzzies I have for you in order to kick your butt? 'Cause I can do that!"

As carefree as ever, she simply smiled up at 'Bobby'; waiting to see just what the Danger Room had in store for her.


End file.
